1645.]

THE KING'S CABINET OPENED.

45

Upon this they all turned their horses, and rode upon the spur, as if they were every man to shift for himself." * Rupert's men, says Clarendon, "having, as they thought, acted their parts, could never be brought to rally themselves again in order, or to charge the enemy. That difference was observed all along, in the discipline of the king's troops, and of those which marched under the command of Fairfax and Cromwell, (for it was only under them, and had never been remarkable under Essex or Waller,) that, though the king's troops prevailed in the charge, and routed those they charged, they seldom rallied themselves again in order, nor could be brought to make a second charge the same day." +

The battle was at an end. The most precious spoil of that day was "the king's cabinet," which, when "opened," disclosed secrets which more injured. his cause than any victory of his enemies. When the banners taken at Naseby were hung up in Westminster Hall, there was joy and pride; but there was bitter indignation when the letters taken in the cabinet at Naseby were read aloud in Guildhall. There was no sincerity in the king's desire for peace; there was no abatement of his determination to govern by absolute power. Foreign princes were asked to send their soldiers to conquer rebel England. The dreaded Papists were to be freed from every restraint on the condition of such assistance. The best blood of the Cavaliers had been shed on the Broad Moor near Naseby.‡ Other defenders of the king's standard might arise; but these letters were the damning evidence of deceit; and those who saw that the word "loyalty" had ceased to charm, could only complain that domestic confidence was violated when the private correspondence of a king and queen was published to the whole world.

Naseby being not far from Coventry where I was," writes Baxter, “and the noise of the victory being loud in our ears; and I having two or three that of old had been my intimate friends in Cromwell's army, whom I had not seen of above two years; I was desirous to go see whether they were dead or alive. And so to Naseby-field I went two days after the fight, and thence by the army's quarters before Leicester, to seek my acquaintance."§ The worthy man whose curiosity thus took him amongst scenes of horror, has left us no description of the traces of carnage here. But he has given a vivid picture of the men by whom the work was done. In his despatch of the 14th of June to the Speaker of the Commons, Cromwell did not neglect, even in his brief rest after the battle and the pursuit, to call attention to these men-the flower of the new-modelled army. "Honest men served you

"Rebellion," vol. v. p. 184.

Ibid., p. 185.

The slaughter of the 14th of June was terrific, both on the battle-ground and in Cromwell's charge of the fugitives beyond Harborough. Mr. Thorne, in his charming "Rambles by Rivers," has well described the battle, and says, that "the field itself still retains evidence of the event. The bodies were collected and buried in several huge pits that were hastily dug; and the earth with which they were covered has sunk considerably, so that now they form large hollows-some of the deeper, from the water collecting in them, except in very dry weather, form ponds, and being left waste round the borders, have become fringed with brambles and weeds. The plough is not carried over any of the graves, and they have a solemn effect when it is known what they In cultivating the soil, bullets, cannon-balls, and fragments of arms, are frequently turned up. The man I had with me when examining the place had been a servant of Mr. Mastin's [the historian of Naseby], and had dug for him in several of the pits. The bodies, he said, were not more than eighteen inches or two feet from the surface. The arms are usually rusted to pieces, but not always; my man had dug up 'a swoard not very long ago, and polished her up as broight as bran-new."" § "Reliqui Baxterianæ," p. 56.

are.

VOL. IV.-99.

46

BAXTER IN THE PARLIAMENTARY CAMP.

[1645. faithfully in this action. Sir, they are trusty; I beseech you, in the name of God, not to discourage them. I wish this action may beget thankfulness and humility in all that are concerned in it. He that ventures his life for the liberty of his country, I wish he trust God for the liberty of his conscience, and you for the liberty he fights for." "The liberty of his conscience" thus proclaimed in the hour of Cromwell's triumph, was a startling notion to the majority of public men at that time. When Baxter found his old acquaintance in the camp, he stayed with them a night. He had been "unfeignedly for king and Parliament." He had thought "that the war was only to save the Parliament and kingdom from papists and delinquents." He understood the Covenant to be" against papists and schismatics." He thought it a mere lie when "the court news-book told the world of the swarms of anabaptists in our armies." He came amongst Cromwell's soldiers, and "found a new face of things which I never dreamt of." Sectaries in the highest places were Cromwell's chief favourites, and by their very heat and activity bore down the rest." He says, "they were far from thinking of a moderate episcopacy, or of any healing way between the Episcopal and the Presbyterians. They most honoured the Separatists, Anabaptists, and Antinomians; but Cromwell and his Council took on them to join themselves to no party, but to be for the liberty of all." Shortly after, Baxter, whose reputation as a preacher was very high, was invited by colonel Whalley to be chaplain to his regiment. Whalley was "orthodox by religion, but engaged by kindred and interest to Cromwell." Baxter went. "As soon as I came to the army, Oliver Cromwell coldly bid me welcome, and never spake one word to me more while I was there." The good man was ridiculed: "There was a reformer come to the army to undeceive them, and to save Church and State." Thus discountenanced, the zealous minister pursued what he thought his duty. "I set myself day by day to find out the corruptions of the soldiers; and to discourse and dispute them out of their mistakes, both religious and political. My life among them was a daily contending against seducers, and gently arguing with the more tractable." He was ever disputing with them about Civil government, or Church order and government. "But their most frequent and vehement disputes were for liberty of conscience, as they called it; that is, that the civil magistrate had nothing to do to determine of any thing in matters of religion, by constraint or restraint; but every man might not only hold, but preach and do in matters of religion what he pleased: that the civil magistrate hath nothing to do but with civil things; to keep the peace, and protect the Church's liberties." Amidst all this vehemence-amidst the ignorance, pride, and self-conceitedness which Baxter reprehends-it is impossible not to be struck by the fact of a great army, after a mighty victory, being occupied with discussions which appear more properly to belong to parliaments and synods. But without a due perception of the zeal which, whether rightly or wrongly directed, counted an earnest faith the one thing needful, we cannot comprehend the events of these times, and more especially those events which placed, ultimately, the monarchy and the Parliament under the power of the army.

During the summer of 1645 singular confederacies had been formed in some places, avowedly for protecting their property against both parties.

1645.]

CLUBMEN-SURRENDER OF BRISTOL.

4

Those who belonged to them were known as "Clubmen." They were to some extent neutrals; but they were principally called into activity by royalist gentry. They were not "clubbable" men in Johnson's sense of the term. Their business was to use their clubs as valiantly as they might. They became annoying in the south-west to the parliamentary army; and Cromwell, in a march towards Shaftesbury, encountered about two thousand of them. They fired upon a party of his horse, but of course were soon routed. "We have taken about three hundred," Cromwell writes to Fairfax, "many of which are poor silly creatures, whom if you please to let me send home, they promise to be very dutiful for time to come, and will be hanged before they come out again." Fairfax had taken some of the Clubmen previously; and Cromwell told those who interceded for them that "they were to be tried judicially for raising a third party in the kingdom."*

King Charles had fought his last battle at Naseby. The military career of prince Rupert in England was now fast coming to an end. Bristol, which Rupert was charged to defend, was invested by Fairfax and Cromwell on the 22nd of August. The positions taken by the several divisions of the parliamentary army are minutely described in a letter from Cromwell to the

Carlyle, vol. ii. p. 184.

48

BASING HOUSE TAKEN.

[1645. Speaker. On the 10th of September the city was stormed. The royalists caused the city to be set on fire at three places. Whilst the parliamentary commanders "were viewing so sad a spectacle," Rupert sent a trumpet to propose a surrender. The articles were agreed upon; and the prince marched out with a convoy of two regiments of horse. He went to Oxford. Charles wrote him a bitter letter of reproach from Hereford : " My conclusion is, to desire you to seek your subsistence until it shall please God to determine of my condition, somewhere beyond seas." A royal proclamation was issued the same day, revoking and disannulling all commissions of military authority given to "our nephew prince Rupert." The surrender of Bristol was perhaps the wisest act of Rupert's life; for he had no chance of holding it against the parliamentary forces, and the king was utterly unable to render him assistance. But Charles would not learn from the bitter lessons of adversity. It is justly said, "after his defeat at Naseby his affairs were, in a military sense, so irretrievable that, in prolonging the war with as much obstinacy as the broken state of his party would allow, he displayed a good deal of that indifference to the sufferings of the kingdom, and of his adherents, which has been sometimes imputed to him.” *

At the beginning of October, Winchester surrendered to Cromwell; and he then went on to the siege of Basing House. Of the many memorable places of the Civil War there is none more interesting than this. It was amongst the strongest of those private houses of the nobility which offered. such strenuous resistance to the progress of the parliamentary troops. had endured siege after siege for four years. The traveller on the South Western railway looks down upon a great ruined pile, not far from Basingstoke, lying on the other side of a little stream. The ruin will repay a closer inspection. This was the house called "Loyalty " which Cromwell battered from the higher ground till he had made a breach; and then stormed with a resolution which made all resistance vain. Never was such a rich plunder offered to the Roundheads, as was found in the mansion "fit to make an emperor's court," of the magnificent Pawlet, marquis of Winchester.

Destruction of Manor Houses-Miseries of Sieges-Montrose defeated at Philiphaugh-Defeat of Digby-His Cabinet taken-The King in Oxford-Overtures for Pacification-Termination of the War in the West-Prince of Wales leaves for Scilly-The King negotiates with the Scots-The King's Flight from Oxford-Adventures of the King on his way to the Scottish Army-The King with the Army before Newark-State of Parties-Negotiations-The King surrendered to English Commissioners--Capitulation of Oxford-End of the first Civil War.

THE traces of the Civil War in England are to be found in the existing ruins of several old mansions, besides those of Basing House. Amongst the most interesting and picturesque are the remains of the manor-house of South Winfield. This was one of the estates of the Shrewsbury family; and here Mary, Queen of Scots, resided for some time under the care of the earl, who is associated with her unhappy story. Sir John Gell, who was very active in the parliamentary interest in Derbyshire, here placed a garrison. In 1643 the place was taken by the Royalists. But it was retaken by Sir John Gell; and Colonel Dalby, the governor, was killed in the storming. In 1646 the Parliament ordered the place to be dismantled. Such was the course with regard to other great mansions of historical interest. Of the various conflicts for the possession of detached castles and manor-houses, that of Basing House is amongst the most memorable. The rapine and slaughter there were probably greater than at any other of such strongholds. It was a post of importance,